Sunday School 5/5/24: Burgum's VP Interview

Jake Tapper chatted with Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) in the State of the Union classroom. Burgum's one of the folks on the long 'short list' of potential vice presidential candidates for Donald Trump. 

Here's some of the interview, including questions I wish had been asked.

Tapper started by asking if Burgum was "comfortable with" Trump comparing the Biden administration to the Gestapo, referring to a comment Trump made talking to donors. Burgum said Trump talked for a long time, teleprompter-free, on lots of stuff, and it was "largely very upbeat."  More to the point, he said

...I mean, this was a short comment deep into the thing that wasn't really central to what he was talking about. But I understand when -- and I think Americans understand, a majority of Americans feel like the trial that he's in right now is politically motivated. And if it was anybody else, this trial wouldn't even be happening. So I understand that he feels like that he's being unfairly treated. And I think that it's reasonable that someone who's being kept off the campaign trail as the presumptive nominee has got some frustration about that.

Tapper followed up with "So, a public trial with witnesses, a jury, a defense counsel, that's like the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police?"  Oh, that's not what he said, Burgum countered.  Not only that, but

And he wasn't referring to this trial when he made that -- made that comment.

Oh - which trial was he referring to, then? 

But I do think that people understand. I mean, I'm a business guy. This is a business filing case. If it was anybody other than a presidential candidate, this would be a misdemeanor. How it got turned into 34 felonies, when there isn't even a -- the alleged crime, which is -- they haven't even convinced anybody there was a crime. But if it were, it would be a Federal Election Commission crime. And that would be pursued by the federal courts, not by a county DA in New York.

Tapper noted some unspecified polling showing "a plurality of the American people think that President Trump did commit a crime when it comes to this case. And if you add in those who think it was unethical, but not illegal, it's a vast majority." And he asked, "...if Donald Trump becomes a convicted felon because of this case, will that affect your support for him for president?"

Well, if he becomes a convicted felon in this case, that's a -- just a travesty of justice, because, as I just said, when you have got a business filing error that is for something that was -- again, it's not illegal to pay people for nondisclosure agreements.  That happens all the time. I'm sure this network and others have done that. So that's not illegal. And then you have got a -- again, they're trying do this. And the only reason this trial is happening right now, it's the only one that could actually be brought forward. The other four couldn't be brought -- the other three of the four couldn't be brought forward before the election. So,, this one is largely intended to try to achieve a result before the election. And then you can be assured, as Americans would know, that any kind of appeal would be pushed until after the election. So that's why everybody sees this as politically motivated. And, like I said, a filing error is not something that would affect any American people that are trying to put food on the table and gas in the car. It doesn't affect them. And so this is why the outcome of this trial is not going to change a lot of people's minds. It might actually in some ways help President Trump because it reinforces the idea that the Biden administration is willing to use lawfare to try to attack a political opponent.

Um, Governor - the question was, if Donald Trump becomes a convicted felon because of this case, will that affect your support for him for president. Can I get a simple yes or no answer?

There was some pushback by Tapper that Biden has nothing to do with DA Alvin Bragg, and that it's more than a 'business filing error', and the evidence Tapper's seen so far "suggests there at least was some political motivation to this, and they hid it so as to hide that from the public. That's a little bit more than just checking the wrong box on a form. But let's move on..." to the comment Trump made about the Dems basically having a 40% head start because of civil service workers, unions, and "the welfare. And don't underestimate the welfare. They get the welfare to vote."

Tapper asked if the 100,000 folks getting Medicaid in Burgum's state are being paid to vote for Dems.  

No, and I don't think that's the intention that he meant when he said that...

Well, what do you think he did mean when he said that? 

Burgum talked about open borders, and "national security and public safety" and "inflation touches every single American, the wars that are breaking out around the world." And then he talked about student loan debt, which has nothing to do with "the welfare" as anyone describes it.

But then you throw on top of things like the student loan debt, and you start trying to give away hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, and it's not even -- it's like we're borrowing to give it away. It's not tax and spend. It's borrow, borrow from the Chinese, and give it away. When you see those, those citizens understand those are like preelection payoffs. Those are like, hey, folks, please vote for us because we're -- we're relieving your debt. So, at what point does it cross over, programs like student debt, to just vote-buying? And I think, again, the people that are working hard and are paying off their debts and aren't getting don't loan relief are saying, hey, this is just isn't fair. And, in America, people want things to be fair, not unfair. And I think it's clear that there's vote-buying going on at a scale like we have never seen before.

Governor, do you believe citizens in your state who have met the requirements of various student loan debt-relief programs should continue to be saddled with debt that was supposed to have been discharged years ago?  

Tapper's comeback was actually quite good, I think - take a look.

 Does that offend you more than Donald Trump telling a room full of donors, wealthy people, millionaires, billionaires, that he's going to cut their taxes? Is that -- is that buying votes any different?

Here's how it went after that. 

DB: Well, first of all, I just reject the whole premise of this idea of wealthy donors. I mean, the room of people that were there yesterday are all people that were job creators. These are -- these are Americans that were -- took risks, that...

 JT: So, they're not wealthy?

DB: ... sometimes risk everything they had to start -- to start a business. Well, they're wealthy now because the American system of capitalism worked for them to create jobs, to help them build their communities. These are among the most generous people in the country. They're the ones that are giving back to their -- to philanthropic efforts and building strong communities. They care about their kids and their grandkids. Because they have been successful and because they have worked hard is not somehow that they should be disparaged. This is what we should be celebrating. These people represent the American dream. And part of the way the American dream works is when we have low taxes and low regulation. And Joe Biden wants to -- he's proposing the largest tax increase in the history of America, and proud of it. 

Here's another easy one that Burgum should have been able to answer, but struggled with. Tapper asked about Trump's comments about what happens if he loses, and whether he'd accept the results or if there'd be violence. In a nutshell, Trump's not promising we'll be spared a repeat of January 6th, and of course, there are his comments that he'd 'spare' (pardon) the J6 rioters.  He wondered if Burgum, who has spoken against the J6 mob, was concerned by Trump's rhetoric.

He started talking about the 1960 election when Nixon conceded to Kennedy. And he talked about 2000 when we had the hanging chads. And then he talked about 2016, and suggested that CNN "challenged" those results. 

And when Tapper tried to get him focused on what might happen next January, not about 60-some-odd years ago or 20-odd-years ago or eight years ago, what happened?

Yes, well, I'm -- I'm looking forward to next January, when Vice President Harris certifies the election for Donald Trump. I mean, the American people are the ones that get to decide these elections. But for both parties and for all Americans, we have got to make sure that every county, every precinct is beyond reproach, and that everybody can be confident in our country... It can be done. It's done all over the nation, except, in some cases, we have got -- we could have a handful of counties that this election could turn on again, and we have just got to make sure that, when it's done, both sides feel good about how it was counted.

And what does that have to do with Trump pardoning J6 rioters, not committing to accepting the results of the '24 election, or promising to not provoke violence like he did in 2020? That would be absolutely nothing. 

Simple question for the governor: Do you disagree or agree with Snitty Snitty Bill Barr that "there was no significant fraud that would have changed the results" of the last election?

DB: Well, again, we're talking about - what are you talking about, what happened before the ballots came in or after they came out? 

JT: I'm talking about the results of the 2020 election.

DB: blah, ditty blah, ditty blah blah blah. We're talking about making sure that the 2024 election is secure. And there's no need to keep relitigating 2020. We got to talk about the policies that are going to help people understand. And again, how do we make America safe? How do we get our economy strong again? How do we secure our borders? President Trump is going to is going to do all those things. And this is a unique point in history, because we haven't -- since Grover Cleveland, we haven't had a former president running against a current president. So, Americans have got a better chance than ever to say, was I better off under President Trump than I am under Biden? And the answer for the majority of people is that they were better off under President Trump.

Governor, is there a reason why you won't just answer the question you're asked? Did someone tell you to do that, or are you doing that on your own?

One last chance for him to do that, with this:  "So, just quickly, if you could, if President Trump asks you to serve as his vice president, will you say yes?" For Burgum, that means dropping 300 words without ever

 Well, I think any of that right now is all speculation. I mean, as you opened the show, talking about the veepstakes and the group of people on stage, you couldn't get it -- if you had had any more on there, they'd have been falling off the stage. And prior to that, he said there was 50. So, I think the short list needs to be modified. Maybe there's a list of 50. If I'm on it, who would know? 

And then, for good measure, he threw in another 2oo-some-odd words, none of which was 'yes'. For all I know, he's still talking. 

Gov. Kristi 'The Hunter' Noem's and Sen. Tim Scott's veep interviews are on the way. 

See you around campus.  

Wondering on Wednesday 1/24/24

 

Ready... set... wonder!

If you've been paying attention to financial news lately, you're likely aware that the stock market is booming. The Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P have all hit or neared record highs,  sometimes on consecutive days. 

Remember how big a deal that was during the Trump administration? He talked about it all the time in interviews and on social media. I found over 140 tweets or retweets from him raving about how high the market was, how many records it hit, and how fabulous it was when he was president. For example, here's one from December 31, 2020.

That was then, but this is now, and with Joe Biden in the White House, Trump is no longer excited about the market's success. Rather, he's telling his supporters that "the stock market is making rich people richer" - as if that's ever been a bad thing for an alleged billionaire. 

So, I'm wondering, am I supposed to be happy with my 401(k) doing so well, or am I supposed to be mad about rich people? 

*** *** *** *** *** 

This week marked the fourteenth anniversary of Citizens United, the case in which the Supreme Court decided that there are no limits on how much money corporations, non-profits, unions, trade organizations, and the like can spend buying elections, because limiting their money limits their speech.

According to an article from The Hill, 

AdImpact, a political advertising tracking firm, anticipates $10.2 billion will be spent on political advertising across broadcast, cable, radio, satellite, digital and CTV during the 2024 cycle, which would make it the most expensive in history.

And, if the estimate proves true, that'd be over a billion dollars more than was spent during the 2020 cycle, the previous record (emphasis added). The article also notes that

Outside groups have dumped nearly $318 million into 2024 presidential and congressional elections as of Sunday, OpenSecrets reported.

And how does that compare to 2020? It's "more than six times" what was spent during the same time period in '20 (emphasis added).

I won't bother wondering what this does to the voices of regular folks like you and me; I mean, that's pretty obvious, right? We're not actually muzzled, but our voices are surely being drowned out. 

I do wonder, though, why the amount living, breathing people can spend is limited. After all, we're the ones who actually vote.

*** *** *** *** ***

An article from HuffPost informed us that Ron DeSantis ran a pretty expensive campaign.

The DeSantis campaign and Never Back Down combined had roughly $150 million to work with. Much of that came in the form of an $82.5 million transfer from the Florida political committee that DeSantis used to run for governor in 2019 and 2023. It’s highly likely that money dried up in the waning days of his presidential campaign, as many of the governor’s donors had already maxed out their contributions while his donor base did not show signs of expanding.

I'm not surprised he dropped out of the race; many folks think he was really prepping for 2028 and a run against Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). The two debated last November, which is when Newsom famously said, "Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024." 

As DeSantis half-heartedly endorsed the front-runner, Trump told us he would officially retire the 'Ron DeSanctimonious' nickname. I'm half-heartedly wondering if no longer having to hear the name is why DeSantis suspended his campaign - and if his donors, and their wallets, wish he had done it sooner.

*** *** *** *** ***

One more about politics, and then we'll move on - I promise. I've been talking about endorsements quite a bit lately, I know, but did you see this one?

Nikki Haley receives major endorsement from Judith Sheindlin ahead of New Hampshire primary

You may be wondering, as am I, how many people knew who Judith Sheindlin was without watching the video or googling her. And I can't help wondering how much influence Sheindlin has? I guess she's still on TV in syndication, but her show ended in July 2021. And finally, I wonder how on earth this can in any way be considered "a major endorsement."

*** *** *** *** ***

It's FAFSA season - that time when families with high school seniors sit down and try to figure out how they're going to fund further education for their kids. While there are reports of issues with the form, the lateness of it, and most importantly with the calculations, that's not what I'm wondering about. 

Rather, I'm thinking about what happens long before FAFSA - when parents fight their way through the challenge of finding available and affordable childcare - and long after, when the kids have been out of college for 10, 15, or 20+ years and still owe on their student loans. 

Here's what I'm wondering: why don't we hear the same complaints about childcare tax credits as we do about student loan forgiveness? If the argument against the former is that we shouldn't have to bail out people who can't afford college, I'd expect the same people to argue that we shouldn't have to bail out people who can't afford to raise their own children.

*** *** *** *** ***

I'll close with a silly observation. I follow a couple of 'old house' pages on social media, which share photos of houses built as far back as the late 1600s, with most being around 100 years newer than that.

Followers of the page are very passionate; for people who complain, and for those who love what they see, everything is fair game:  windows, walls, floors, and ceilings; rugs, art, and collectibles, and where they are displayed;  and most especially, the kitchens and bathrooms. The most common complaints about those two rooms are that everything is too modern, the wrong material, in the wrong spot, or just plain ugly.

I haven't officially commented on this yet, but I wonder why no one ever complains about the houses having indoor plumbing and electricity in the first place?

*** *** *** *** ***

What's on your wondering mind today?

In Case You Missed It (v105)

A little better week, post-wise. Here's your recap of what made it out last week. 

Your Sunday School was filled with talk about the shenanigans at Mar-a-Lago, and about student loan debt forgiveness. In the State of the Union classroom on CNN, Dana Bash talked with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) about that, which was a major theme of her presidential campaign. Here's a bit of that. 

Bash wondered about fairness, and other kinds of debt that the government isn't helping with. Warren said she thinks "a lot about fairness," before reciting her own story of going to college when a semester cost $50, getting a part-time job and being able to pay for her education. That's not the case now, where "our public education system is no longer creating opportunities" for folks without financial means.

Instead, we're saying to these young people, you have got to get an education, but we are going to wrap the chains of debt around you. And, for many, you're going to be paying it for decades into the future, including getting Social Security checks garnished. That's not the America we want.

She didn't address the 'fairness' question, and Bash noted the package doesn't do anything about the cost of education. There are "a lot of problems in the whole system," she said, and this is one tool Biden had to help. She said the Dems "have put multiple plans on the table" to deal with the other issues, but the Rs won't get on board.

I didn't research her comment about the Rs not getting on board, but given the last two years, I don't have any immediate reason to doubt her on it. 

For your Extra Credit, I decided to spend time with the panel on Fox News Sunday, where there was some discussion on President Biden's comments on extreme MAGA folks - those comments were amplified, of course, in his address on Thursday. We'll get to that a bit more in a minute.  Here are what I'll call his trial balloon, and some of the discussion.

What we're seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It's not just Trump, it's the entire philosophy that underpins - I'm going to say something, it's like semi-fascism. 

And later, he said, after calling Maryland's Gov. Larry Hogan "a Republican you can deal with,"

 We disagree, but at least he's within the mainstream of the Republican Party. I respect conservative Republicans. I don't respect these MAGA Republicans. 

Juan Williams, a panel regular, was asked how Biden's comments compared to Hillary Clinton and her 'deplorable' comments? 

Williams started with a date: January 6, 2021. Clinton's widely (and often purposefully) misconstrued statement happened before that date, and Biden's was after it. 

After January 6th, you had the reality that there were a group of people, Trump supporters, who attacked the Congress of the United States to stop the certification of a legitimate, fair election. You had people in the crowd who wanted to threaten, if not hang, Vice President Pence. You had a situation where there were Trump officials who were pressuring state officials to manufacture votes and send phony electors to the Congress of the United States. I think if people behave that way, then they can be -- they can expect to be called semi-fascist, fascist, because it's antidemocratic action. You're acting against the constitution of these United States...

There was some disagreement from others on the panel, as you might imagine. 

I was wondering, on Wednesday - but I wasn't typing, so we skipped that regular feature last week. I did manage to get a couple of #tbt posts out on Thursday, both related to topics we're still talking about now. 

The first, from 2012, was a Point/Counterpoint recapping a Facebook conversation on voter ID laws. It was short and sweet - here's the crux of it; the red and blue are indicative of the political leanings of the participants.

It sounds like Obama can't get re-elected unless he has all these people that can't prove who they are to vote for him.

Ha ha - sure sounds like Romney can't get elected without these new laws keeping people from voting... 

Funny - sad funny, not haha funny - how little things have changed in a decade, isn't it?

The second #tbt was a Quick Take on FBI transparency from 2016. Here's a bit of that.

And now? There's some additional consternation, albeit perhaps more limited, as the FBI has decided to release information from their investigation.

(September 2, 2016) the FBI is releasing a summary of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's July 2, 2016 interview with the FBI concerning allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal email server she used during her tenure. We are also releasing a factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter. We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests...

Your TGIF was untraditional, which seemed fitting given the week's news. Given the discussions on Biden's brief remarks about MAGA extremists - NOT about all Republicans, he made clear - I shared a section of his address from Independence Hall. 

But first, we must be honest with each other and with ourselves.

Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.

Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

Now, I want to be very clear -- very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology. 

I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.

But there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.

It's important to see his full comments in context, because the Rs and the pundits don't want you to see that: they want the soundbites, and the arguments, and the battles. And that's consistent with how they regularly behave. 

I pointed all that out in a Sidebar, with previous examples to show that it's a pretty consistent practice in those circles.  The examples were from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The former talked inelegantly about people "clinging to guns or religion" and the latter famously gave us the 'basket of deplorables." But unless you looked for it, you couldn't find the context of those remarks to understand the point they were trying to make. 

The media, which has an obligation to report the truth, and to separate news articles from opinions, didn't do a good job with either of these statements. Too often, they would report on the most inflammatory parts and, if you read the rest of the article, you could probably find a link to the entire quote. Of course, they know how few people read the entire article, right? Oh, hell - let's be honest - they know how many people read only the headline. 

The pundits, with no such obligation to the truth, blatantly ignored anything other than the most incendiary words - it was as if the rest of the quotes were not even spoken. I remember watching clips from the talk shows and the cable shows, and if anyone tried to mention the full breadth of the comments, they were shut down immediately: "Yeah, but he said..." "Yeah, but she said..."  "Yeah, but no one's going to remember that part, they're only going to remember the part that we're talking about..." "Yeah, but..."

The real villains here, in all three cases, IMO, are the Republicans who whole-heartedly embraced the soundbite, particularly Clinton's 'deplorables' comment. They owned it! They put themselves in that basket, they put their colleagues in that basket, they put their donors in that basket, they put their constituents in that basket, and they put everyone who voted for any Republican in that basket. 

And just like back then, the Rs are going overboard again, broadly painting themselves with an industrial sprayer, when the comments were wielded with six-inch-brush. 

And so it goes, as Linda Ellerbee used to say.

Have a good week.

Sunday School 8/28/22: Extra Credit

For your Sunday School Extra Credit, we're going down the hall to the right and into the Fox News Sunday classroom for the panel discussion. Jennifer Griffin hosted, and her guests were Josh Kraushaar (Axios), Catherine Lucey (Wall Street Journal), and regulars Karl Rove and Juan Williams. 

First up? President Biden's recent comment about a subset of Republicans; here are the two statements he made that are causing a bit of consternation among the Righties. The first statement was made as he was speaking at a fundraising rally in Maryland.

What we're seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It's not just Trump, it's the entire philosophy that underpins - I'm going to say something, it's like semi-fascism. 

And later, he said, after calling Maryland's Gov. Larry Hogan "a Republican you can deal with,"

 We disagree, but at least he's within the mainstream of the Republican Party. I respect conservative Republicans. I don't respect these MAGA Republicans. 

So, here's Griffin's question to Williams:  How similar is this to Hillary Clinton and her 'deplorable' comments? Williams started with a date: January 6, 2021. Clinton's widely (and often purposefully) misconstrued statement happened before that date, and Biden's was after it. 

After January 6th, you had the reality that there were a group of people, Trump supporters, who attacked the Congress of the United States to stop the certification of a legitimate, fair election. You had people in the crowd who wanted to threaten, if not hang, Vice President Pence. You had a situation where there were Trump officials who were pressuring state officials to manufacture votes and send phony electors to the Congress of the United States. I think if people behave that way, then they can be -- they can expect to be called semi-fascist, fascist, because it's antidemocratic action. You're acting against the constitution of these United States. And I think, you know, without being dramatic, that's how democracy dies. They were trying to undermine, to subvert this Constitution.

He also pointed out the second comment Biden made, which differentiated between Trump's extreme MAGA Republicans (RINOs, in these pages), and mainstream, conservative Republicans. And he also noted another network's poll saying "the idea that this democracy is under attack is a number one concern of American voters. 

Karl Rove begged to differ with Williams, saying

Joe Biden, President Biden, was attacking Republicans generally. He was not talking but the people who assaulted the Capitol that sits to the south of us here. He was attacking the entire party... This was - this was not in keeping with what the president promised us. My whole soul is in it, he said, in his inaugural, bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. That was after January 6th. We must see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors. We should treat each other with dignity and respect. He was not treating his political opponents with dignity and respect.

Williams strongly disagreed, Rove said Biden never said anything about conservatives, and eventually Griffin told the two to stop barking at each other so she could ask Kraushaar about Republicans (she didn't specify which kind she was referring to) cancelling ad spending "in several key states, like Arizona."

In response, Kraushaar talked about Biden's confidence, and "the fact that he is now going after Republicans suggests a certain confidence that he think some of these Republican candidates are too far to the right." And, he said, it's not the GOP overall, it's specific races.

There are a lot of races like that where Republicans are going to have to figure out where to spend the money because some of these candidates are just a little bit too far to the right of the swing states that they're running in.

Griffin asked Lucey whether Biden's student loan debt plan is "just a play to get young voters and minorities" to vote in the midterms. Lucey remined everyone that Biden campaigned on doing this, and using income limits for eligibility shows 

they see this as a - a policy decision that was important to make. I think, in some ways, the thing to think about more with November is less - is, you know, certainly this could motivate a certain group of voters, but there's a lot of candidates, there's a lot of Democrats who aren't huge fans of this decision...who think that this could be a problem for them in November. So, you have that dynamic playing out.

 Turning to Mar-a-Lago, Rove was asked if Trump's in trouble, and he said "Well, I think he's in trouble with public opinion." He talked about the 184 classified documents - 700 pages worth - that were turned over in January, and then the new set of classified documents from the search this month. He said "apparently" everything's out of Trump's hands, and he hopes

the former president has no exposure on this. It would tear our country apart if he were now to be indicted, particularly after Hillary Clinton was not indicted over - over the - the use of a - of a private email server to share classified information. But he -- those documents should not have left the White House. They should not have gone to Mar-a-Lago. The Presidential Record Act of 1978 forbids it. And the president himself, former President Trump said, they could have had them back anytime they wanted and that long ago, all they had to do was ask. Well, apparently, they were asking...

Williams said

I think it's clear the Department of Justice was justified in this step. And, boy, if Hillary Clinton had done this, I think a lot of people's hair would be on fire.

Kraushaar said there's legal jeopardy for Trump,  

but I think the politics are a lot more mixed because it's clear he mishandled classified information. Is it incompetence or is it malice, that's the political question.

Incompetence? Malice? Is malicious incompetence a choice?

See you around campus.

Sunday School 8/28/22

Let's dive right in with your Sunday School lesson with Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) in the This Week classroom with George, who started by asking if there should have been any documents at Mar-a-Lago. 

Blunt said "we need to know more" about what was found, and wondered why the Intelligence Committee he sits on didn't know anything about this before the top-secret poop hit the fan. He did say they are expecting a briefing soon.

George tried again, and a third time, at which point Blunt said he's careful with documents, butwhatabout Hillary Clinton and James Comey? The fourth time, Blunt said "he should have turned the documents over and apparently had turned a number of documents over." And, he wondered

why this could go on for almost two years and less than 100 days before the election, suddenly, we're talking about this rather than the economy or inflation or even the student loan program you and I were going to talk about today?

On student loan forgiveness, Blunt's a no - he thinks the plan is "monumentally unfair" to folks who didn't attend college because they couldn't afford to go, and to people who paid back their loans, and to people got educated without loans. Besides, it's

just bad economics... I think it's going to have a long-term, devastating effect on a student loan program that worked pretty effectively until about ten years ago when the federal government assumed responsibility for that program.

That Guy from Vermont was up next, offering his take on loan forgiveness. He explained 60% of the benefits will go to folks with Pell grants, and 87% is going to folks making less than $75K a year. He noted how "shocking" it is to some GOP colleagues when "the government actually... does something to benefit working families and low-income people."

He said there wasn't any squawking about "massive tax breaks to billionaires," adding 1%ers "have a lower effective tax break than working people;" and of course, there are corporations that, "in a given year don't pay a nickel in federal taxes." The fact that both Rs and Ds are unhappy? Well, "... the answer is not to deny help to people." 

The answer is maybe to create a government where -- which works for all people and not just for wealthy campaign contributors.

George asked if that can get done "without more Democrats in the Senate," Sanders suggested the Dobbs decision will have an impact, as will "the gun violence we're seeing."

So, I think there is a reasonable chance that Democrats will retain control over the Senate. I certainly hope we get more than 50 in the Senate, that we get at least 52, so we can start going forward and protecting working people in a way we have not been able to do up to now.

Down the hall, Dana Bash had Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) in the State of the Union classroom. 

Bash asked if AG Merrick Garland should indict FPOTUS. Warren thinks "it's powerfully important" that DOJ can follow the evidence, and if they have it, "they will bring charges and prosecute appropriately. And I support them in that."

Like Sanders, Warren's happy something's being done on student loans. Noting that 40% of folks with student loans don't have a four-year degree, she said the forgiveness "is about America investing in people who work hard, who play by the rules, and who just need a government on their side."

Bash wondered about fairness, and other kinds of debt that the government isn't helping with. Warren said she thinks "a lot about fairness," before reciting her own story of going to college when a semester cost $50, getting a part-time job and being able to pay for her education. That's not the case now, where "our public education system is no longer creating opportunities" for folks without financial means.

Instead, we're saying to these young people, you have got to get an education, but we are going to wrap the chains of debt around you. And, for many, you're going to be paying it for decades into the future, including getting Social Security checks garnished. That's not the America we want.

She didn't address the 'fairness' question, and Bash noted the package doesn't do anything about the cost of education. There are "a lot of problems in the whole system," she said, and this is one tool Biden had to help. She said the Dems "have put multiple plans on the table" to deal with the other issues, but the Rs won't get on board.

We'll close with Sununu, about whom there was some early talk of a presidential run; he's hoping to be re-elected as gov. Bash asked him how concerned he was about the Mar-a-Lago documents, including info related to 'human clandestine sources."  Sununu toed the party line, saying he's concerned about transparency.

...one thing I was very aggressive about was saying, look, if you're going to take unprecedented action and raid a former president's house, well, you better have a strategy for unprecedented transparency. So, I think we're all concerned about what might be in those documents, that some were classified, some weren't, what the serious nature was, but show us. You got to be able to show your cards when you're taking actions like this.

Bash said "you can't show all your cards when you're talking about top secret information," which is the point of the investigation. She asked if he was concerned about "the potential risk to American intelligence and national security."

I think we should -- we should absolutely be concerned. There's no question about that. But I don't know what to be concerned about. No one -- no one seems to. What's the subject matter? What's the dates? What's the times? What are we talking about here? Of course, you can't just open the whole investigation up.

He said he didn't want all the documents on the Internet, but "give us some sense " of what's in them and "what really drove us in there."

So, this is unprecedented. And they had to have an unprecedented strategy, which they clearly didn't have. They're on their heels. They don't know what to do. We just -- we want to see the information, so we can have this discussion, we can talk about the subject matter with some sense.

On the student loan program, here's the best part of his argument.

by the way, the debt is not going anywhere, right? Someone's got to pay it. And, in many instances, because there's no balanced budget, there's no sense of control on the $30 trillion in debt, here's the misery of it. Those individuals that think they're getting the $10,000 or $20,000 off their student loans, it's just getting effectively deferred into taxes down the road, higher taxes down the road, where they will have to pay interest on. This is a political shell game of money. 

 See you around campus.

Wondering on Wednesday 8/24/22

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Where do we start tonight's wondering? 

Right here in my neck of the woods - in the Empire State - where I find myself wondering why so many national political reporters are talking today about the Dems losing a prominent House member in New York, when there was literally no possible way that two Dems could survive a primary for the same district? The only question in this one was who would survive:  Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House Oversight Committee, or Rep. Jerry Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Nadler won easily.

I read an article in a major national newspaper today about the Nadler/Maloney battle, and was not shocked to see many comments complaining about the redistricting process in NY. No one was complaining about efforts by the Dems to gerrymander five seats blue; rather, the complaints were that a judge didn't accept their efforts the way judges seem to accept the bad Republican maps. And I wonder, if you think gerrymandering is wrong, why are you mad when the courts agree with you? 

Another race in NY that's gotten a ridiculous amount of nation attention was the election to see who would fill the remaining months of former Rep. Antonio Delgado's term (he resigned to become our Lt. Governor). Pat Ryan won the "bellwether" race, as multiple media outlets referred to it, campaigning on a woman's right to choose being a national issue, not a state issue, while Marc Molinaro, the Republican, ran on crime and inflation. How much does this matter in the overall scheme of things, I wonder? I'm not convinced it's indicative of anything, really; NY's a pro-choice state; the 19th district's been blue since 2018; and Ryan will be on the ballot again in November, trying to win the seat in the new 18th district. If he wins that, it might mean something. Until then, I don't think so.

I can't help wondering how Rep. Elise Stefanik, the number three RINO in the House is feeling today. (A RINO, in these pages, is a MAGA Republican). Stefanik strongly supported the deplorable Carl Paladino in the primary for NY's new 23rd district; Paladino lost to NYS GOP chair Nick Langworthy. Stefanik also strongly supported Steve Wells in the primary for NY's new 22nd district. Wells lost to Brandon Williams. 

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy might not have had a great morning, after the Paladino loss. It's been reported that McCarthy and Rep. Steve Scalise, his Number Two, weren't happy with Stefanik 'going rogue' with her endorsement. I wonder how today's leadership chat went?

And then we've got President Biden's student loan forgiveness program, announced today. There's lots to dive into on that, and I've got a few bookmarked articles to digest tomorrow. I did wonder, though, at how hard the media worked to find Dem-leaning economists to chime in and say how bad an idea it was - and it wasn't even Larry Summers, the favorite DLE of all.

What's on your wondering minds?

The Journal of Unpopular Opinions (Chapter 1)

No one in the leadership of the Democratic Party has what it takes to fight the battles the party is facing, much less win those battles. 

No one else in the Democratic Party is standing up to fight those battles.

No one in the Democratic Party will stand up to fight those battles. They're afraid of something, or of someone, or of the several someones in the part leadership. 

Face it: while Nancy Pelosi is considered by many to be a strong Speaker in terms of how she manages her caucus (although, that seems to be open to question these days), she is a horrible advocate for the Democratic Party and its priorities. 

I've shared my, shall we say, 'lack of enthusiasm' for Pelosi in the past, such as here, when she was re-elected Minority Leader in 2016. She lost 63 votes to Ohio's Rep. Tim Ryan, who expressed then the same frustrations as I have today. I suspect Ryan still has them, too.

...my level of frustration came from the idea that we're going to have, for two more years, the same conversation as we've been having since 2010 (when the Dems lost 63 seats and the House majority in the mid-term election).

And I think the level of frustration in our caucus is as great as I've ever seen it. And it's time to do something about it, not just talk about it. Because now we're not even the national party. We're a coastal party. And we've got to move forward. If we're not going to get voters in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, go back down south. When I first got in Congress, we had members from Tennessee. We've got to go back there and campaign and get those folks back in the fold.

Ryan also talked about how the Dems don't unify the demographics, but "talk about them and treat them as individual groups" and emphasized that they've

... got to get the message right. We've got to have the right messenger. And we've got to have someone who can not just go on MSNBC, but go on Fox and Fox Business and CNBC, and go into union halls and fish frys and churches all over the country and start a brush fire about what a new Democratic Party looks like.

Ryan is now running for the US Senate; he faces a progressive challenger in the primary. Of course, he does - because one thing Dems are good at is fighting each other.

And don't get me started on Chuck Schumer. I've long not been a fan. Here's just one illustration of why: having the Judiciary Committee Dems pull a stupid stunt instead of voting against advancing the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett out of committee. Schumer thought that not showing up was the best way to "not lend a single ounce of legitimacy" to the process. My take? 

Rather than skipping out on the meeting, the adult thing to do would have been to show up, explain one more time for the record why it was the wrong thing for the Judiciary Committee to do, respond to whatever statements the Rs made (instead of just reading their remarkably similar prepared remarks), and then vote against moving the nomination forward. 

Instead, they put pictures of people who benefited from the Affordable Care Act in their chairs, hoping their colleagues on the other side of the aisle would look at those, feel bad, and delay the vote.

This is the leader of the Dems in the Senate? Good grief.

The issues facing the country today - and facing the majority Democrats - have not changed over the past many years. The solutions to those problems are still out there, and they're still not being talked about in a way that will bring us to the solutions we desperately need. 

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "Before we start taxing the super-rich, why don't we make sure that the tax code doesn't contain 50,000 ways to avoid paying taxes? If they don't have to pay the taxes on the books now, what good is adding more going to do?"

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "With literally hundreds of bills that may limit voting rights under consideration around the country, some already passed into law, why on earth are seven of ten articles in our voting rights bill not related to voting?"

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "Do we really want to require banks to report $600 transactions to the IRS? Is that really the best way to find tax avoidance by the wealthy?"

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "Why aren't we doing everything we possibly can to ensure that existing programs for student loan relief and repayment are accessible and working as intended, instead of pushing to eliminate all student debt?"

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "What the hell are we doing, holding up nearly $2 trillion in infrastructure spending? Why aren't we pushing the bipartisan Senate bill through, getting it signed, and putting that to good use right now?"

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "I don't care how we get it done, but we will have a plan - well before December - on the debt ceiling. Period."

Who is the Democrat who will stand up and say, "Where are the problem solvers? They don't have to be Problem Solvers, but we need to solve some problems, and fast."

I desperately want *That* Democrat to exist. The one who knows that getting something is better than getting nothing, the one who knows that trying to get Santa to give you everything you've ever wanted since you were three years old, all at once, is insane. I don't know if he or she even exists, but if *That* Democrat is out there, now is the time to stand up and be heard. Now is the time to read your caucus the riot act. Now is the time to get something done.

What they're doing now is not sustainable, and if they think the shellacking they took in 2010 was bad, wait until they see what happens next year.

Sunday School 2/21/21

Welcome to Sunday School, where getting kids back in school is just one of the topics we'll be covering.

First up? Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers; she spoke with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. Weingarten said it's a "myth" that her union doesn't want to be back in school. "Teachers know that in-person education is really important, "she said. The new CDC guidelines, and the money for schools in the Biden COVID package, provide the roadmap,

... the layered mitigation strategies; the testing, so that you can actually see asymptomatic spread; and vaccine prioritization -- not that every single teacher has to be vaccinated before you open any schools, but you should align the vaccine prioritization with the reopening of schools.

She said 85% of her membership "have said that they would be comfortable being in school," with the right protocols in place. It's happening in different places around the country, and

... I think the issue is, if the NFL could figure out how to do this, in terms of testing and the protocols, if schools are that important, let's do it. And my members want it, they just want to be safe.

Weingarten said that unions aren't monoliths, and the locals asking for more than the national is just "...that people are scared." She said they've learned that when teachers are in school with proper protocols in place, they've got greater trust. At the same time, 71% of AFT members are scared they'll bring COVID home to their families. The AFT's been hosting town halls and trying to build trust with their member.

Todd's final question was whether we'd have full reopening without full vaccination. Weingarten said the answer really is in how "full school opening" is defined. In the end, she said, 

What I think we need to do is we need to actually try to get as much in-person as possible right now. Have the mitigation strategies... have a real great summer semester to get kids' mojo back in a voluntary way, and then really be planning for next year.

I think the "really be planning for next year" needs to start now, doesn't it? 

Now, let's check in with the #2 GOP leader, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who joined Jon Karl in the This Week classroom. Regarding kids in schools, Scalise said that President Biden can "give strong guidance and follow the science." Kids should be the priority, he said, but "that's not the case because right now you can see, as the unions have stepped up and said that they don't want in-classroom learning." 

Our kids can't wait. They need to be in the classroom today. The science says they can be in the classroom today. The question is, is the will there for some politicians in Washington who are bowing to the teachers' unions right now? 

Scalise's main issue is not requiring that schools taking money reopen. That, and there's "over a trillion dollars of money unspent" from previous bipartisan relief bills, Scalise added, and spending more money to "bail out failed states, to raise the minimum wage" doesn't have anything to do with COVID. Besides, it takes money away from our kids.

And his visit with Trump? Scalise said he was "in Florida doing some fund-raising throughout a number of parts of Florida, ended up at Mar-a-Lago, and the president reached out, and we visited." Which sounds like what GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy said about his visit with Trump last month...

Three times, Karl asked about Trump taking responsibility; Scalise never mentioned Trump, instead blaming the people who stormed the Capitol, Senators using 'fighting words,' and Dems who didn't denounce "during the summer, when they were burning down cities, shooting cops, beating people in the streets..." Who "they" are, he didn't say. In the end he landed nowhere near Trump.

... we -- you can rehash the election from 2020 all day long, but there are people concerned about what the next election is going to look like. Are we going to finally get back to the way the rule of law works? And I think that's the biggest frustration many people have, is those states that didn't follow the law, are they going to keep doing that in the future, or are we going to finally get back to what the Constitution calls out for electing our leaders?

I'd like to hear his definition of 'leaders' because if he and McCarthy meet the definition, whatever the processes are, they've failed.

Finally, we're in the State of the Union classroom with Dana Bash and Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the House progressive caucus. The first topic was the $15 minimum wage, and whether Biden was "fighting hard enough" to get it done as part of the COVID relief package.

Jayapal said Biden's been fairly consistent in supporting it, while acknowledging it might run into trouble in the Senate. But, she said, it

would mean 30 million Americans would get a raise. A million Americans would come out of poverty, and 30 percent of those minimum wage workers are black; 25 percent are Latinx. It is absolutely essential that we do it. And I believe the Senate will do it.

Jayapal said  that if "Republicans could give a $2 trillion tax break to the wealthiest people and stop Arctic drilling, then -- or continue drilling in the Arctic, then I think that Democrats can make sure that 30 million Americans get a raise."

Even in the face of two Senate Dems, Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AC) opposed to it, Jayapal pointed to what happened in her own state, in Seattle.

It is good for communities. It's good for businesses. I know because we were the first major city in Seattle to raise the minimum wage to $15 over a period of years. And, in 2018 and 2019, "Forbes" ranked us the best place in the country for businesses and for careers. We had one of the lowest unemployment numbers in the country.

She thinks the increase will be in the relief package. On direct stimulus payments, she said it "doesn't make any political sense to her" for Biden to give them to fewer people than Trump did, so there's no reason to change who gets them.

On student loan forgiveness, while Biden says it should only be $10K, she said progressives say it should be at least $50K.

...if you cancel that debt, you give a lifeline to millions of people across this country. So, let's work on it together. Obviously, if Congress could do it, that's great. But we believe that the president has the authority to do it. And we have been in conversation with the White House about it...

And, whether Biden is "living up to his promise to be the most progressive president," Jayapal said he came out of the gates strong, and

I think what we need to do is finish strong all the promises that have been made during the campaign to deliver relief to people, to make sure people understand what happens when Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the White House, is, we deliver relief. 

As I said the other day, it's going to take a lot of fortitude on Biden's part to not be dragged away from what he believes in, and what lots of us who voted for him believe in, too.

See you around campus. You better be wearing a mask.

Wondering on Wednesday 2/17/21

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Colorado City, TX Mayor Tim Boyd doesn't seem to like his constituents very much. Or, I should say, his former constituents. The mayor has resigned after directing quite the rant at residents of his city, some of whom have no power, water, or heat while the region is stuck in a major winter storm.

"No one owes you or your family anything," he said - "nor is it the local governments responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it's your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!" Not only that, but

If you have no water you deal with out and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family. If you were sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising!

Am I sorry that you have been dealing without electricity and water; yes! But I'll be damned if I'm going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves! Bottom line, quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family! 

He clarified in his, um, 'apology,' that he meant "those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves"- they're the ones who shouldn't "be dealt a handout." I wonder, why did he ever get into public service in the first place? How many more Tim Boyds are out there? And how long before they're discovered?

President Biden said last night in a CNN Town Hall that he did not support cancelling $50,000 in student loan debt for everyone, doing that would wipe out the debt of around 80% of all borrowers, and nearly 70% of all federally-held debt. "I will not make that happen," he said, adding he thinks there's better ways to spend a trillion bucks on education. 

AOC, of course, chimed in. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren also entered the fray, saying in a joint statement that Biden had the power to do it, and adding

Cancelling $50,000 in federal student loan debt will help close the racial wealth gap, benefit the 40% of borrowers who don't have a college degree, and help stimulate the economy. It's time to act...

I wonder, will Papa Joe be able to stick to his guns?

A lot of attention was paid when President Biden spoke via video conference on Inauguration Day and advised his new team that they were to treat each other, and everyone they deal with, with respect - or else they'd be fired. It was a high - and welcomed - bar, after the low standards of the last four years. 

It didn't take long for that core principle to be challenged. Deputy press secretary TJ Ducklo was suspended for a week without pay for using "derogatory and abusive language" with a Politico reporter, while trying to get a story killed. Suspension was not enough, obviously, if the rule is that you're going to be fired. There were lots of complaints, both within the administration and from outside, and in the end, Ducklo resigned, preventing Press Secretary Jen Psaki or Chief of Staff Ron Klain from having to fire him. 

I think a lot of people wondered whether the Biden team would really stick to the 'respect or else' rule, and I don't think folks though it would be tested this quickly. I was a little disappointed to see that they sidestepped at the beginning, but I was happy that, in the end, they did what they said they would. 

What are you wondering about?

Sidebar: Poll Watch: The Not-So-Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Yesterday's Poll Watch looked at how registered voters responded to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, focusing on their perceptions of the president and some of those who want to be president.   Today, I wanted to share some of the opinions these voters have on the issues that are currently bubbling to the top, with the caveat that the survey was done before all the news about impeachment took over the media cycles.

A majority of all voters favor DREAMers being allowed to stay legally; an opt-in to Medicare; student loan debt forgiveness after a history of payments; tuition-free public colleges and universities; 100% renewable energy use by 2030; and, somewhat ironically, oil drilling off the US coast.

Smaller percentages of us favor ending fracking, building a wall on the border, getting rid of the Affordable Care Act, implementing Medicare for All (M4A) and getting rid of private insurance, and giving illegal immigrants government health care - which has the lowest level of both overall and strong support.

None of the issues reaches even 45% strong support.

Things look a little different if you look at the opinions of Democratic voters in the survey. Again, there's majority support for DREAMers, for the Medicare opt-in, for repayment and then forgiveness of student loans, tuition-free college, and renewable energy, but then things change.

Health care for illegal immigrants, Medicare for All (M4A), immediate forgiveness of student loans, and ending fracking also have majority support from Dems. 

Only a handful of the issues - DREAMers, the Medicare opt-in, student loan forgiveness tied to a repayment plan, and tuition-free college - have strong support from a majority of Dems; all the rest of the issues fall below 50% on the strength of support.

The key takeaway from this data? Moderate positions have greater overall support among all voters, and among Democratic voters, than do the more 'progressive' positions.

So if you're a fan of the more moderate Dems, including Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar, this may be good news. On the other hand, if you're a fan of the 'burn the house down' theories promoted by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (to a slightly lesser degree), this might not be good news for you.

I know there's a school of thought out there that everyone will be more extreme during the primaries and then they'll move to the center for the general election, but we saw how that worked in 2016, particularly for the Dems. As I recall, among the reasons why people didn't like Hillary Clinton is because they didn't trust her to keep her word, and they couldn't tell where she stood on the issues because it seemed she changed her positions so frequently.

I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have a candidate that has convictions and the courage of them, one I can count on to say the same thing to me in October 2019 as they'll say to me in October 2020.